Mouth-Watering BBQ Meatballs

Hello Play Eat Grow readers!  My name is Kelly and I love to cook and bake.  Tiff asked me to share a fall or holiday recipe with you, but it has taken me a while to come up with something.  Although I have been trying all kinds of new recipes (because I felt like I was in a rut), I want to share with you an old recipe that our family loves time and time again…BBQ Meatballs.  

This dish came from my husband’s family and is often served at Christmas or when we all get together for a birthday.  One of the great things is that it makes a lot, so you have several options.  You can serve it when hosting, freeze some for later, or give some away (which is what I’m doing with this batch).  There is some freedom with the recipe too…you can make the meatballs out of ground turkey or ground beef, make them small and serve as appetizers or large and only have one or two as a meal.  This is a great recipe when hosting because it can be made well in advance, which frees you up to focus on other last minute preparations.  When made in advance, the meatballs can be kept in the refrigerator overnight to be baked the next day, or frozen and then thawed before baking.  It is not uncommon for us to have this dish stocked up in our freezer to pull out for a busy weeknight or for last minute dinner guests.
I made mine into 27 meatballs and divided them into three pie dishes with nine in each.  I baked one for our family for dinner, baked one to take to a friend with a new baby, and then have one to freeze (fully prepared with sauce, unbaked).

Ingredients: 

2 cups quick oatmeal
1 can evaporated milk
2 eggs
1 cup onion
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. salt




Sauce: 
2 cups ketchup
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
1 Tbsp liquid smoke




Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.


For the meatballs: In bowl, combine the ground beef and oats. Pour in the evaporated milk and mix in two eggs. Add the onion, garlic powder, chili powder, and salt. Stir to combine. Roll the mixture into large balls and place in baking dish (9×13 and/or pie pans). We make 27 balls and put them into 3 different pie pans (9 per pan)- baking what we need and freezing the rest.

For the sauce: Stir together the ketchup, liquid smoke, brown sugar, and garlic salt. Spoon and drizzle the sauce evenly on the meatballs.

Bake covered for 45-60 minutes, uncovering for the last 15 minutes. (Baking time will depend on how big your meatballs are—the bigger they are, the longer the cooking time)


A little about Kelly: I am a wife to Eric and a mother to two little boys, Cooper (2) and Hudson (6 months). We live in Jefferson City, Missouri and work for the Leadership Development Team of the Missouri Baptist Convention (my husband full-time and me a little bit from home). I stay pretty busy keeping up with my little boys, but love to travel, cook, run, and come up with DIY projects for my husband to do 😉 I met Tiff as a student at Mizzou and we share a common interest in spending time with college students, hoping to encourage them to love Jesus more.